Barbirolli

My third gig with The Hallé orchestra was to play Berlioz’s wonderful ‘Fantastical Symphony’ in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea. It was to be conducted by Sir John Barbirolli, the orchestra’s resident conductor.

The hall was named after Swansea’s most famous artist, Sir Frank Brangwyn. He had obviously been very inspired by Gauguin; the walls of the hall were covered in paintings of semi-naked native girls peering from behind exotic fruit trees. One of the orchestra’s wits had described the pictures as “all tits and bananas.”

It was an Indian summer’s day, and we sweltered through the rehearsal. Barbirolli repeatedly kept saying that he was cold. He had put on his overcoat and scarf and had an electric heater installed on his conductor’s rostrum. As we sweated through the rehearsal, surrounded by incongruous jungle scenes, Barbirolli continued to mutter about being cold and that none of us was playing well enough. Every few minutes, he would disappear offstage for a short while to “warm himself up.”

Each time he came back onto the stage, he walked a little more unsteadily, and it seemed to take him a bit longer to reach the rostrum and get onto it. Then he would start to conduct, but each time a little faster.

Eventually, with a flurry of waving arms, he fell backward off the rostrum and disappeared from the orchestra’s view into the stalls six feet below.
In shock, the orchestra stopped playing and was frozen with fear; perhaps the old man had seriously injured himself, or worse?

In the silence, a slightly slurred voice floated up from the stalls. “Don’t worry, my children, I am all right.”

© Jim Anderson, 2025